The main attraction in Xitou is the Forest Recreation Area, a large park full of trails that let you see nature without the hassle of actually having to go to a forest. We went there after breakfast this morning and I found it a little bit too civilized for my taste, I would prefer a real forest over this one. However, there were a few spots that made me appreciate the place more, chief of which was the Sky Walk, a metal walkway high up among the treetops that lets you experience the forest from a different perspective.

  • Pretty cool little bridge made mostly of bamboo
  • Yini at the start of the Sky Walk
  • Looking down is kind of scary….
  • …don’t you agree?
  • I would hate to have to use this
  • Further out on the walkway
  • The people below look so small
  • Walking down one of the many trails
  • Yini even found some peace to meditate among the bamboos

Having walked several of the trails we felt pretty satiated with forests and mountain trails, and since the other attractions in the area seemed to be more of the same we decided to drive home. On the way Yini spotted what looked like an abandoned hotel, and I just had to stop. It wasn’t just a hotel but a whole little resort with the main building by the road and several wooden cottages out back. There seemed to be someone living in one of the cottages but the rest of the place was pretty badly damaged; several cottages were in a state of collapse and there had been a fire in the main building. Judging from the state of things the place must have been empty for decades. Anyhow, it was all very exciting to a lover of abandoned places like me.

  • Front of the main building
  • Corridor along the building front
  • Interior of the main hall
  • The lobby

Looking out through two of the windows

The main hall of the upper floor

  • The backside of the main building, pretty overgrown
  • One of the small cottages, one corner is completely collapsed
  • Another collapsed cottage
  • Row of cottages, they might look fairly OK on the outside but the inside is really decayed. The one in the far end is the one where people still seem to be living
  • Slowly collapsing
  • This one is almost sinking into the ground
  • Broken water tank
  • There is almost nothing left of this one

There was another abandoned looking place on the other side of the road but it was fenced in and people living nearby might not have liked it if I climbed in so I had to skip it. When we got down from the mountains and entered the highway the sky was getting really dark and soon we saw flashes of lightning in the distance. As we got closer, the sky got so dark we had to turn the lights on. It’s not often you need the headlights at three in the afternoon, at least not in Taiwan; northern Sweden might be a different thing.

That’s it for this time, I had a great weekend and I believe Yini did too.